Contents

Background

Orbit projects need to have a common way to keep track of the IP information for all versions of the project. In an effort to make this easier, we will put an XML file in each project root in HEAD and it will contain all of the information for that project and all of its versions.

MartinO: Having a file in HEAD of each project requires committers to switch branches for editing it. This seems awkward. I'd prefer one single central file holding IP info for all bundles and versions under Orbit. This would be easier accessible, and allow reviewing other bundle's entries - for instance, in order to copy & paste hyperlinks to common license files like ASF 2.0 or ASF 2.1. I don't think we have that many bundles or high change rate that we'd have to fear running into frequent parallel change and merge issues by a single centralized file.

Jeff: Good point. How about this. In the Orbit Releng project have an "ip_log" folder and in there have one file per bundle that falls out of Orbit. That file would be named 'bundle id'.xml and would contain the info as described below. I am hesitant to just have one large file as it will be harder for people to find all the information relevant to a particular bundle (which is likely to be the more frequent query. However, having everything in one location is a great win.

Bjorn: I believe that Eclipse Legal wants to have one file per bundle -version that contains the IP log information for that bundle for that version. I could be wrong. I have asked Janet to comment as well.

Janet: I like Jeff's suggestion. It will ensure that all of the information is available in one place, while making it easy to identify bundle specific information and where that bundle specific information is missing. This level of clarity will be increasingly important as Orbit grows.

We would like to be able to use all of the information in this file to produce a suitable web page that describes the project(s) including links to the project in CVS (via ViewCVS) and links to the project on the originating site.

TODO

Section for things we still have to add to the file, including:

Links to the origin of the code - pointers to the actual binary that we used as input and also maybe a pointer to the source. This could be useful to track the source of eventual problems.

Martin: I think we should also have a "used-by" section listing all the projects at Eclipse.org which are known to actually use a bundle/version (i.e. include it in one of their features). A hyperlink into ViewVC for the CVS/SVN version of the feature project would perhaps be most helpful. This would not only track usage, but also help other projects who want to adopt it get started with their own feature.xml / feature.properties. When I'm not mistaken, from a legal standpoint every project needs to put an Orbit bundle it wants to pick up through review for usage in their project, so it seems natural to maintain the list of known users.

DJ: Add a version number to specify file format.

Format

The file format is a work-in-progress but here is what we have so far.

<!DOCTYPE project[
<!-- A "project" element represents a specific version of an Orbit project. The
"id" is the bundle symbolic name and the "version" is the project version.
The "status" attribute is used to indicate whether or not this project is
ready for use by consumers. A value of "done" means that its good, and a value of
"in-progress" means that it is currently under development.
-->
<!ELEMENT project info contact notes legal+>
<!ATTLIST project
id CDATA #REQUIRED
version CDATA #REQUIRED
status (done|in-progress) "in-progress"
>
<!-- An "info" element contains more information on the project including where we got
it and optional references on the web, etc. -->
<!ELEMENT info (name? origin? reference? repository location tag?)>
<!-- The "name" is a human-readable name for the project. -->
<!ELEMENT name (#PCDATA)>
<!-- The "origin" is the originating individual or company for the project. -->
<!ELEMENT origin (#PCDATA)>
<!-- The "reference" a URL or reference to the original project. (e.g. web site) -->
<!ELEMENT reference (#PCDATA)>
<!-- The "repository" is the path to the CVS repository. -->
<!ELEMENT repository (#PCDATA)>
<!-- The "location" is the path in the CVS repository. -->
<!ELEMENT location (#PCDATA)>
<!-- The "tag" is the CVS tag or branch for the project. -->
<!ELEMENT tag (#PCDATA)>
<!-- The "contact" element describes the person on Orbit who is the contact for that project. -->
<!ELEMENT contact (name? email company?)>
<!ELEMENT email (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT company (#PCDATA)>
<!-- The "notes" element is an area for free-form notes about the project. -->
<!ELEMENT notes (note+)>
<!ELEMENT note (#PCDATA)>
<!-- The "legal" element describes the legal items related to the project. There can be more
than one if we have more than one package (JAR, package, or some other unit that has a
different license than the enclosing project) The "package" element is not required (and
there should only be one "legal" element) if the "legal" element applies to the whole project.
-->
<!ELEMENT legal (ipzilla license package?)>
<!ELEMENT ipzilla>
<!ATTLIST ipzilla
bug_id CDATA #REQUIRED
>
<!ELEMENT license (name? reference)>
<!ELEMENT package (#PCDATA)>
]>